SIR: The intended conference with the minister for foreign affairs of which I spoke to you in my last (No. 70) took place yesterday morning. I began it by expressing my regret that a communication from the President to Congress had been so much misrepresented in that part which related to France as to be construed into a measure of hostilities. It was, I said, part of a consultation between different members of our Government as to the proper course to be pursued if the legislative body of France should persevere in refusing to provide the means of complying with a treaty formally made; that the President, as was his duty, stated the facts truly and in moderate language, without any irritating comment; that in further pursuance of his official duty he declared the different modes of redress which the law of nations permitted in order to avoid hostilities, expressing, as he ought to do, his reasons for preferring one of them; that in all this there was nothing addressed to the French nation; and I likened it to a proceeding well known in the French law (a family council in which the concerns and interests are discussed), but of which in our case the debates were necessarily public; that a further elucidation of the nature of this document might be drawn from the circumstance that no instructions had been given to communicate it to the French Government, and that if a gazette containing it had been delivered it was at the request of his excellency, and expressly declared to be a private communication, not an official one. I further stated that I made this communication without instructions, merely to counteract misapprehensions and from an earnest desire to rectify errors which might have serious consequences. I added that it was very unfortunate that an earlier call of the Chambers had not been made in consequence of Mr. Sérurier's promise, the noncompliance with which was of a nature to cause serious disquietude with the Government of the United States. I found immediately that this was the part of the message that had most seriously affected the King, for Comte de Rigny immediately took up the argument, endeavoring to show that the Government had acted in good faith, relying principally on the danger of a second rejection had the Chambers been called at an early day expressly for this object I replied by repeating that the declaration made by Mr. Sérurier was a positive and formal one, and that it had produced a forbearance on the part of the President to lay the state of the case before Congress. In this conference, which was a long one, we both regretted that any misunderstanding should interrupt the good intelligence of two nations having so many reasons to preserve it and so few of conflicting interests. He told me (what I knew before) that the exposition was prepared, and that the law would have been presented the day after that on which the message was received. He showed me the